


The Colour of Virtue

by Aeshna etonensis (GMWWemyss)



Series: Modest Proposals [2]
Category: One Direction (Band), Village Tales
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, M/M, The Establishment, deus (or dux) ex machina, justice served cold, rurality, the Peak District
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:28:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2761352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/Aeshna%20etonensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the boys and their new management do well by each other, and do good to others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Colour of Virtue

**Author's Note:**

> This is by way of being a sequel to A Modest Proposal. For those who have not read that effusion – which I admit is very much an indulgence, a ‘what-if’ in which a deus, or dux, ex machina (whom I chanced already to have to hand) is busily at work: as Jack Lewis said of Rolfe’s papal fantasy, ‘everyone likes to imagine what a man could do if he were a dictator or Pope, or Caliph’ – it suffices to know, by way of back-story, that the Azoffs’ solicitor (Young Mr Hales-Owen), in order to break the deadlock whereby Modest had a year left to play dog in the manger with the lads’ contract, suggests calling in the Establishment to create a management company for UK and EU operations, who’ll make Modest an offer they daren’t refuse. Enter Mr Hales-Owen’s fellow OE, Charles duke of Taunton: scion of one of the Stuart royal bastards, former officer in the Intelligence Corps, and just behind the duke of Westminster on The Times’ list of rich Britons: who promptly enlists as partner his old Eton-and-Christ-Church schoolmate and fellow cricketing Blue the Nawab of Hubli, and sells shares in the proposed management company to, amongst others, Dame Shirley Bassey, Sir Paul McCartney, Adele, Mika, and his old Wiltshire neighbour Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. Oh: and to the Duchy of Cornwall. Thus provided, His Grace overbears Modest, buys out the contract, and with considerable glee sets about making the entire music industry sorry it was ever born.
> 
> This is the story of what happens after, with the boys having at last a management, at Home and Overseas, willing to back them to the hilt and fight their corner: even as to coming out.
> 
> The title, by the way, is from the founder of Cynicism, Diogenes of Sinope, who declared that ‘modesty is the colour of virtue’.

* * *

‘So, I can – on Twitter, like, I can wish everyone a happy Eid. And talk about my fam, and friends, and that, and what an auntie said and the time a cousin did something as made us all fall about.’

Charles duke of Taunton – that tidy wee man with the bristling brows and moustaches beneath the conventionally floppy fair hair, whom Louis had said should be played by Martin Freeman in the film of their rescue from Modest – nodded at Zayn. ‘You can even tweet about cricket now, dear boy, whether you pass the Tebbit test or not – dear old Norman – and without being warned off on the ground it’s “too stereotypical”. You can follow Moeen Ali as well as young Root. So far as I am concerned, you’re free to fanboy Boom Boom as much as you like as well, half the MCC do when there’s not a Test involving England.’

The duke sighed. ‘And free to be political, also, yes. So long as a few points are understood. You could if you wished support the Pakistan Test side even as against England, but you do _not_ even when Pakistan play India say anything stupid – banter and barracking though it may be – about, by way of example, MS Dhoni, anymore than you’d have said anything against the Little Master.’ The duke was not an MCC member and an Oxford cricketing Blue for nothing. ‘You can say what you like about Kashmir, but you’ll not be incendiary with it; the same applies to Gaza. And you can damned well expect pushback, including from me, just as publicly, and best of British luck with winning an argument with _me_ even in one hundred and forty characters. Domestically, you can come out for Labour or the Lib Dems – or for Ukip or as a Tory, it’s up to you: but, again, you’d be well advised – I’ve already told young Master Styles the same – to be prepared for a good, solid, Oxford-Union-calibre debate. And if you _do_ decide to enter the lists of controversy, don’t whinge when controversy ensues and people are shits to you: a point I have made to everyone bar Niall – and to your Liam particularly. I strongly suggest you make certain beforehand what your psyche can bear, having in mind the sort of peasant mob that is the ’Net.

‘And of course, there’s the whole coming-out business.’

Zayn blushed, visibly. ‘Mum won’t – I mean – but –’

‘Speak with your father. Beforehand. And if you want support, well, Nobby and Alam are to hand, and Sher; as am I, so far as that’s of use (and frankly – there’s a reason I did close OPINT support in my Int Corps days – I speak better and purer Urdu than they do). But I suspect that your father recognises he leaves nearer to Leeds than to Lahore, and that he lives in Bradford, not Bahawalpur, Badin, or Bhimber. His concern, if I have taken his measure aright –’ Charles being Charles, his tone left no doubt but that he was imperturbably certain that he had, _of course,_ taken that measure rightly –, ‘is likely to be, not for _namus,_ for _his_ or the family’s _izzat,_ but rather for your personal safety and that of your mother and sisters. And I’ll tell you quite frankly – _as_ a “Frank” – that if you plan ever to make the _hajj,_ you’d be well advised to do it _before_ you come out, and the same for any visit to your father’s side of the family and ancestral graves back in Pakistan.

‘Which bein’ said, the decision is wholly in your – and Liam’s – hands. It is simply no business, save to support you and smooth your path in whatever decision you take, of Clumber Management’s.’

* * *

It had taken very little time, once the duke and his partners and investors had bullied Modest into selling them their contract with One Direction, for Simon Cowell and the duke to reach a _modus vivendi_ : both had, or wished to appear to have, the boys’ best interests at heart, and Simon had – or so he managed to convey – long felt guilty for his allowing the young innocents to fall prey to Modest and its minions. (The duke did not necessarily credit that: the bugger had once been thick as thieves with Max Sodding Clifford, a man who, after a long day of keeping clients closeted, relaxed by sexually assaulting underaged girls: but so long as any vice paid tribute, however hypocritical, to virtue, and Cowell and Syco _acted_ as if they meant well, it really didn’t matter what was in anyone’s heart and mind. The duke’s own opinion was that Cowell – imagining that His Grace should quite likely, if thwarted, see to it that the public, any number of silks, a Select Committee of Commons, the editorial staff of the _Torygraph,_ and the duke’s fellow Privy Counsellors should all begin taking a long look at his customary contracts and business practices, in the full blaze of publicity and with the prospect of a Royal Commission making enquiries (which, admittedly, was just what the duke _should_ do, if thwarted) – had chosen out of sheer, farting terror to essay the better part of valour. This perturbed His Grace not at all. A man who had notoriously told the PM to his fat little face that the PM was evidently the surviving portrait of Dorian Heath as well as a Wet, invertebrate eunuch, and as notoriously called the Chancellor to _his_ face a counter-jumper and a dealer in shoddy and Manchester, was not in the least daunted by Simon Cowell, and was perfectly willing to point out that it was no longer a question of whether that man had any lingering, faint hopes of seeing himself in an Honours List, but rather whether he hoped to continue being at all able to live and work in the UK, or the music industry generally.)

It had not gone quite so smoothly with others, least of all as the duke held in contempt the standard contracts and practices of the music industry to which he had hitherto been a very happy outsider. Sacking Hackford Jones had been a bagatelle: they’d gone quietly once His Grace, with Lord Lothian (Michael Ancram QC) beside him, had quite forensically laid out the shabby tale of their defalcations and betrayals, not least the self-evident attempts, in defiance of their client’s interest, so to vilify Zayn as to make him to quit the band (in which they had very nearly succeeded). (Charles’ remark to HJPR’s man of business: that he knew it was a convention _not_ to ask certain questions for fear of the answer, but that if the poor bugger were shutting his eyes to perjury he’d see him struck off: was a memory which, Michael said, bid fair to gladden his declining years.) The Chartered Institute of Public Relations were now taking a good, long look at HJPR, as were the Crown Prosecution Service and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

One Direction’s PR was now being handled by Matthew Freud, personally, who, although in the duke’s estimation an appalling Wet and a Cameroon of the Chippiest-Nortonest sort, _was_ the son of an old friend (the duke and Sir Clement had, for all their difference in age and, occasionally, opinion, been notoriously friendly, having not a few of the same hobbies and quirks and a highly similar sense of humour: to the exasperation of all their acquaintance. As one of the duke’s godfathers had been Sir John Betjeman, this was, really, inevitable in its way).

The record label and rights management – Sony’s Columbia subsidiary and BMG, respectively – had been made of sterner stuff, and had attempted quite a creditable, if doomed, rearguard action.

It had made for an interesting conference.

‘You’ve been workin’ them too hard. A sensible firm’d’ve planned – at least by the second album, when it was clear just what you had on your hands – for Stones-like longevity, not gettin’ rich quick and movin’ on. Appallin’ disservice to ’em, really. Sort of thing likely to invoke the very nemesis and All That: overworkin’ the boys only reduces their and your profits by ruinin’ their talent and oversaturatin’ the market. These tours –’

‘Are the primary income stream on any rational model, with the ancillary merchandise. And both of those are going to be buggered if you insist – in breach of several covenants – on their coming out, four of them.’

‘ _Distinguo:_ I insist on their right to do so if and when they choose. Frankly, if they wish to have Matt Fishel and Rufus Wainwright open for them, it’s nothing’ to me. And I’ll be damned if HM judges, or HMG, are at all likely to allow those clauses to stand. Failin’ which, I expect Strasbourg to say ’em nay: which precedent’ll leave you lot in the devil of a state with not a few of your artists, my dear young lady.’

‘We’ll fight you in any court you like.’

The duke had snorted. ‘Balls. More than Balls: _Yvette_ as well. You’d not dare. The –’

‘If,’ had said the other label executive, ‘you’re about to threaten to buy us out, which I gather is your usual turn, let me tell you, the attempt’d make even Your Grace’s splendid fortune look a bit foolish.’

‘Oh, I think not, my boy. ’S quite true that James set up his bastard with rather niggardly grants in the first instance – _Croydon,_ honestly – so far as London went – I’ve no complaint of the rural manors – and it wasn’t until the second duke’s day we got stuck in, creatin’ the Estate in London: sheer rivalry with the Russells and the Grosvenors, really, although Templecombe Square has paid off nicely over the past two centuries. But you forget he also endowed us with bits of Thurrock and Tilbury and All That, Fobbin’ and Muckin’ (dangerous places to spoonerise, what?); and if the ground-rents from Shell and P&G and the rest were lovely, those from the London Gateway deepwater port project which is replacin’ all the factories and refineries … are simply splendid.

‘Because what you forget is this. My investors include artists currently making you lot a nice bit of dosh. But if Adele and Macca, say, publicly turn on you, your price goes down. In fact, if you insist on paintin’ yourselves as the villains here, you can become a pariah in the industry in the time it wants to say, “knife” – and _has_ our boy done somethin’ rash? (Damn it, at least _nod_ to suggest you remember Bobby Darin or Satch or Ella, it’s appallin’ if music executives, so-called, don’t twig to a “Mack the Knife” reference.)

‘And that’s the thing, isn’t it: you’d come off lookin’ – I’ll see to that – like the musical Taliban in partnership with those odd, Yank Baptists, Westboro or some damned thing, _and_ you’ll be fendin’ off Select Committees in Commons and the EHRC and all sorts, and I’d not be at all surprised if you hadn’t young Master Tatchell on your doorstep even as the biggest names in music were peein’ on you from a great height –’

The interruption had been bitter. ‘For a man who spent his youth carrying Maggie Thatcher’s bags....’

The ducal eyebrow reached new heights of literally supercilious scorn. ‘You want to look out the definition of “Libertarian”, my man. But there it is: the corporate image and brand should suffer irreparable damage if you insist on chancin’ your arm in a bad cause, my investors should despise you and make you feel it –’

‘Including, I suppose, the Duchy of Cornwall and the future king: I hear the implied threat there.’

‘You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment. What I _can_ say is, in the American idiom, it’s quite likely you’d “never work in this town again” and All That.’

Charles positively basked in the open hatred which had accompanied the next, despairing question: ‘All right, you bastard, what’s your bloody price?’

* * *

Liam, thought Zayn – so far as he _could_ think just now – was a sneaky, sly, cunning bugger – _bugger:_ sometimes he made himself snigger – sly as a fox on the Front Bench. Waiting so as to ask that question at _this_ moment....

‘Well, love?’ Liam, yet sheathed in Zayn and not softening yet by any means, accompanied his interrogation with the delicious torture of a quick, rolling thrust which made Zayn’s exhausted prick twitch feebly in a manful attempt to have another go, for all that there was nothing whatever left after the past hours. Liam was not the man to let a question go unanswered. ‘How d’ y’ wish to play it?’

‘Want to talk to me baba first, like, don’t I?’ Zayn’s voice was slurred with exhausted satiation. ‘Not looking f’w’d to....’ He trailed off into snores. Liam smiled, fondly, and reached for the damp, warm cloth which, with his accustomed foresight and obsessive preparedness, he’d put in a bowl within reach of the bed. He knew his lover could and should sleep through his tender ministrations, and he was not inclined for them to fall asleep wrapt in one another without his first having cleaned them up. It had been a sweatier workout than any gym could promise, after all.

* * *

Louis and Harry had thought – briefly – of asking the duke if there were any way to buy a cottage in the Woolfonts; but there was something uneasy in the idea of living amidst their own near-doubles, and both of them (and Louis specially so) had long since become enamoured of life in London, with its energy and – for Louis particularly – its freedoms and its sense of having escaped from a not always grateful past.

Niall’s view, never expressed but easily guessed at, was simply that he’d always have a pied-à-terre as near to the others as might be (and this even were the band to end tomorrow), but _home,_ simply, was and should always be Mullingar.

Liam – and Zayn, to an extent, although with Zayn things were as always tangled with old landscape canvases and scraps of pastoral poetry – was much more direct. The Woolfonts’d be a bostin’ place to live, if they weren’t so far from London and his and Zayn’s families alike; and it perturbed him not at all to contemplate life amidst their own elder avatars, Fr Paddick and Mr Mirza, who were already proven the best friends he and Zayn could ask. But they _were_ too far away, from the accents of home and the embrace of family – no matter the old hurts that also lurked down every lane – and the rhythm of life he’d known; too far from smiling nans and old aunts who spoke pure Yam-Yam; too far from faggots and mushy peas....

He had faith – no. He _knew,_ with all the certainty which was in him (and people tended, even _Zayn_ once in a way tended, to forget that Liam, sweet and sensible, douce and kindly, was also so insanely competitive and so utterly fearless and confident as to put The Tommo in the shade: no young man who was not should have come so near being chosen to run for England, or should have borne and triumphed over childhood ill-health and bullying, or should have gone back to the X Factor after his first rejection) – Liam _knew_ it would all come right with Zayn’s family, and that he and Zayn should win through even in the face of corporate and public hostility.

So living even in so lovely a spot as the Woolfonts – making their home _together_ in such a place – was right out, although the idea of a rural hideaway appealed to him overmasteringly. But such a retreat could not, simply could not, be six hours by rail from Bradford or four from Wolvo.

And knowing with settled certainty that his and Zayn’s future was to be as _they_ desired, and none to say them nay, he had already had a quiet chat with the duke.

‘Actually – I might if you wish put you in the hands of Savills or Knight Frank, but … I don’t think it necessary, really. As it happens, I’ve some holdings quite literally halfway between Bradford and Wolverhampton which might suit you. Near Longnor and Fawfieldhead and School Clough and all that: the Peaks, y’ know – White Peak – and the Moorlands and the River Manifold; only drawback bein’, dependin’ on Zayn’s view, it’s a good long way from the nearest _masjid_ – which, I imagine, ’d be Stoke-on-Trent or some place similarly urban. It’s in the Moorlands’ country – but you don’t hunt, I was forgettin’; as for shootin’ … well, you may see me in the middle distance on the Glorious Twelfth.’ Charles commonly shot grouse rather in North Derbs than in Scotland or Wales, a habit dating to the days when he and a then-healthy Debo Devonshire had been thick as any gran and indulged grandson (to Stoker’s amusement), she having decided that Young Charles, as an historian, was an adequate locum tenens for her own absent contemporaries and the friends of her youth. ‘General area borders on Cheshire and Derbs – which may be another drawback, you’ll have Styles and Horan stopping for, ah, “weekends” all the time. All the same, I’d be quite happy to have you look them over; I believe there are decentish schools – preppers and C of E schools – near by, for when you lads start a family, and don’t pretend you shan’t....’

 

* * *

Liam knew better than to worry. Anyone else: the other boys, his own family, their former management (damn them to the fieriest pits of Hell): should have been at best mildly offended by his habit of _presuming_ and going all ahead without a by-your-leave, balls to the proverbial wall. Not Zayn. Their relationship was perfect in that as in other regards, and the worst that might happen should be Zayn’s shaking his head with a grin on his superb face.

The duke had helped him to set up a Trust – of which the duke graciously served as Trustee – to buy the place, and to conceal, from the hell-hound hacks, the bastards of Fleet Street, who precisely was buying it. Any attempts to get behind the Bradhampton Trust (Liam admitted the name to be perhaps revelatory and unimaginative, but only if one already _knew_ ) were going to break upon the duke’s bland imperturbability and monumental discretion like waves upon a breakwater: with the trifling difference that the duke should then counter-attack any such attempt at nosing into their business, and utterly destroy those responsible. He was a magnificent friend and a terrifying enemy, was Charles Taunton.

Liam never pretended to be clever (in which he underestimated himself, for which Zayn lovingly berated him when he caught him at it: ‘You’re _not_ thick, babe, yeah?’); it had taken a few gentle hints from Charles, regarding the ducal willingness to have the name of the place changed, for him to twig. But in the end he’d decided not to mell and meddle with history. What he – or, rather, the Trust – had bought from the Taunton Estates had always been Bent Clough and its farm, and so it should remind, and anyone sniggering about his and Zayn’s being bent could sod right off.

The fact is, he hardly wished to change a thing: he’d fallen in love with the place from the off. The Woolfonts were brilliant, he knew that, West Country chalk, downs and bluebell woods and the eldest of Old England. And he and Charles had looked at the other half of the Peak, the Dark Peak country, with its grim grandeur of gritstone. But this.... Bent Clough in the White Peak upon the Moorlands’ skirts, this land of little farms amidst the limestone, moor and crag, looking down upon the Valley of the River Manifold; this clean, wind-honed country with its immeasurable, infinite skies and Blakemere and the Pennine Way....

This could be – would be; should be; was now to be – _home._

 

* * *

In the time off Charles had won for the lads – to recruit their energies, to work on their music, and simply to _breathe_ – His Grace had seen to it that they were able to do just that. And more, as they listed.

The duke had no particular fondness for modern popular music, let alone the urban music into which – as he saw it – R&B had declined. He had been determined all the same that the boys ought at least to know whence came the music they loved; and there had been months in which they’d been fed a steady diet of Motown and his cherished Northern Soul and its American counterpart of Carolina beach music, alongside (to Niall’s delight) his beloved swing and the jazz standards, and the best of British pop from the Sixties through the Eighties. These had been the months, also, in which – not least by spending weeks at a time in singing or plainchanting every word they uttered – the boys had found their tessituras, and come to modify and enrich their harmonies in response to what their voices truly were. Sir Paul and Dame Shirley, Mika and Adele and Ian Anderson, had been to hand with advice and counsel, and Sher Mirza with his MMus and Dip CHD, and such other vocal coaches as Sher considered best (Dane Chalfin not least). The duke had also brought in Ben Crystal to teach them better skills of speech and presentation, and – it was an unrelished inevitability in the public eye – even of a little acting (the duke well knew, what prior management and Sony Columbia and Syco had forgotten, that his secret weapon was, as in X Factor days, that the Great British Public kept falling in love with these lads when they were free to be their goofy selves); and they’d profited by it (the duke, as much as the others, Harry very much included, had politely declined to show the usual amusement at Louis’ invariable reaction to being in the presence of handsome men). The boys were now – trust the duke to make a reference to Dr Johnson, up at Pembroke – a ‘nest of singing birds’, and no longer pushed and overworked to the point of invoking ‘bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang’ (‘God damn my soul, does no one _read_ Willy the Shake nowadays in this sceptred isle?’).

This, in very general terms, was fed to the press-hounds (‘damned, sore-padded, trencher-fed pack’, the duke complained), with such other titbits as seemed good to the duke (yes, they were writing; yes, they were blazing new paths); and the hounds (‘not a straight-bred one amongst ’em: evidently a bitch got over the wall’) being satisfied, the boys and their new management were enabled to essay other and more important reforms and healings.

Very quietly and without publicity, Liam was aided – not least simply by the prospect of his new freedoms and the excitements of acquiring a new property as a surprise for his Zayn – to overcome his demons.

Very quietly and without publicity, Harry and Louis – not least by the enjoyment of their new freedoms – were helped towards health and happiness.

Very quietly and without publicity, Niall, in the new freedom encouraged by his brethren-bandmates and a management which cared for the boys’ personal development more than for quick profit, was encouraged to shine and to take his own part in sharing the leadership in areas which interested him: his touch was to be specially evident on the next CD.

Very quietly and without publicity, Zayn slipped away, with his family, to visit his father’s ancestral haunts and extended family. That he, and indeed they, could do so, ‘under the radar’, was just this side of a miracle; but Charles Taunton was not a retired officer of the Intelligence Corps for nothing. He had many old friends and old comrades, including – although he was never shy of candid and scathing criticism – in ISI (he might have been a simple major in his day, but, as a British duke, he felt wholly able to tell the Pakistani PM, Nawaz Sharif, in distinctly bald terms, what that man wanted to be doing, and to give Lieutenant-General Rizwan Akhtar, the ISI Chief, a rocket whenever he saw him – the phrase ‘imperium in imperio’ came up regularly, as well as, ‘with you lot, the actual bloody government’s not merely not in full control of the country, they’re not in full control of the loos in their own offices, damn it all’ – and have him suffer it in silence. It helped that Charles’ family had, before independence, provided several officers to the Piffers, whose portraits yet hung in the Mess: the ISI Chief was himself an old Frontier Force officer). And the influence of HH the Nawab had long survived the republican dispossession of the princes, not least because the Nawabs of Hubli, in quixotically acceding _personally_ to Pakistan, had perforce given up their fief in the heart of India, in Karnataka, to _that_ new republic and had arrived in Pakistan with only the clothes on their backs – and the riches in their treasury – leading an exodus of their people.

This quiet ex- and infiltration was a doddle compared to the other great event for Zayn in this year of peace and without a tour. For very quietly and without publicity, subsumed into the egalitarian anonymity of _Ihram,_ Zayn made the _Hajj,_ becoming _mustati_.

His return – with a bobble-hat quite inadequately protecting his new-shaven head from the October chill – was equally discreet and beneath the radar. The duke had – with, Zayn almost suspected, a certain over-enthusiasm for cloak-and-dagger, indulging a trick of the old rage and revisiting certain glimpses of the moon – arranged his return in such a way as to throw any enquirer off the scent. Not for him a return via Emirates or Etihad or Qatar Airways, let alone to Heathrow or Gatwick: Zayn arrived, after multiple flights on multiple carriers, doubling back and confusing his trail like a cunning old dog-fox (it should have alarmed the security services had the duke not had a word at one of his clubs with their heads), at Manchester Airport on an Aurigny flight from Guernsey, of all unlikely places, to be met by a grinning Liam in an absurd but effective disguise which crossed Leeroy with a lumberjack. Zayn’s speechlessness was not allowed to blossom into questions before Liam had him on a train for an hour’s journey to Buxton ( _Buxton,_ Liam could hardly help but enthuse, for music and festivals and FE: this – Bent Clough Farm and its nearness to Longnor and to Buxton – was so perfect for them): to Buxton of the spa and the Opera House, via Stockport, Disley, and Chapel-en-le-Frith.

At Buxton, there was a motorcar waiting: an all too familiar Bristol with a discreet crest on the door and a paternally smiling Ponton behind the wheel: and once they were ensconced in it, Liam stripped off his wig and false beard, beaming, and dragged Zayn into the most comforting of all hugs.

‘Leeyum....’

‘Yeah, I know, but. I’ve. Well. A bit of a surprise for you, yeah? I think you’ll like it.’

‘Babe.’ Zayn’s voice ran over with fondness. ‘’Course I will, whatever it is.’

Liam smiled and subsided, holding Zayn’s hand, and nodded to the landscape passing outwith the windows.

* * *

They stood on the gravel surround outwith the mellow, uncompromising stone farmhouse, substantial and staunch where it had withstood winds and winters for centuries, before as after its Georgian exaltation and the light touch of the finger of Eighteenth Century taste.

‘Is this Charles’s, then?’

Liam carefully did not look at Zayn. ‘It was. Belongs to a Trust, now: the Bradhampton Trust.’

‘Oh, _Li...._ ’

Liam hoped that tone was what he thought it. He hoped, as well, that Zayn was seeing this property with the same eyes as he cast upon it. Heather and willowherb, thale cress and rock-cress, parsley-piert and stonecrop, bent and agrimony; horse-chestnut, sneezewort, wild angelica, and columbine, sweet vernal-grass and mountain everlasting with its kitten’s paws; silver birch of the crimson catkin, and fat-hen and rosebay willowherb; orchid, wild strawberry, and ash; Welsh poppy and primrose and oak, sweet-briar and willow; pipit and finch and kestrel, badger, hare, wood mouse, and fox....

‘You’re brilliant, babe,’ breathed Zayn, as he took Liam into his arms and nuzzled his neck. ‘ _So_ brilliant, yeah?’

Liam managed not to squirm – just – in a mixture of pleasure, affection, and embarrassment at the compliment. ‘It’s a bit over twenty acres.’ He tugged Zayn towards the great, massy door, and inside. Beams and slate, fireplaces fit for a harvest home, a house solid and true. ‘There’s five beds and three baths – two en suite. For the lads and our families, for now. We’re almost exactly halfway between Wolvo and Bradford as the crow flies, you can tell your dad: I mean, until you and he have _talked,_ when you’re ready, it’s a bolt-hole for all of us and our two families when it gets too much, right? And there’s a room we can easily make a recording studio, planning permission’ll be easy. You can tell him –’

‘Babe. I’ll be talking with him soon. About us and about everything. I’m ready, like? Yeah. I....’ Zayn’s voice dropped into a register of solid, half-disbelieving awe. ‘I’m a _hajji_ now. _Me._ And, like – I know what I have to say for m’self on the Day, on _Yawm ad-Din._ I’ll have it out with abbu soon. Okay?’

Liam knew that if he spoke, he’d get it wrong; but a hug was perfect eloquence.

Zayn did not pull away; but he shuffled them towards a window with breathtaking views. ‘Ours, yeah?’

Liam beamed. ‘If you like it.’

‘Babe, I love it. Like, proper love it, it’s going to be our _home_.’

‘Charles says he has furniture –’

‘We’re not dukes, yeah? That’s Bowie. We’re not so upper-class we can’t bear to buy our furniture. But – he can advise. Because this house deserves that: good, proper pieces, farmhouse-like but good. Yeah? Are we leaving the land wild, or do you want to, I d’nno, have sheep and cows and you muck out the byre?’

Liam giggled into his shoulder. ‘That can come when we slow down a bit. I just – yeah: like it is now. I can see Joe and Molly playing –’

‘Babe?’

Liam actually clapped a hand over his mouth as he hung his head, the rubescent blush mounting to his hairline and the burning tips of his ears.

‘Talk to me, babe. Talk to me. You’ve … you’ve already thought about sprogs.’

Liam nodded, yet hiding his face.

‘Li....’

‘I. If. And you. You’d have a say – obviously. I. In my mind, I call them that. Yusuf Geoffrey Walter and Mariam Patricia Malala.’

Zayn gripped him fiercely, fumbling for his flies. ‘Damn it, unfurnished house, why is there no _bed_ in this place –’

 

* * *

In the end, the conversation which had loomed so large and daunting in Zayn’s mind for so long, resolved itself into anticlimax. Ducal efficiency being what it was, it had taken less than a fortnight of junk-shops (none of them of the twee, Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen sort which insisted they sold ‘antiques’) and traditional local craftsmen working in the traditional local idiom, to furnish Bent Clough Farm forth with pieces that clearly belonged there – and to secure planning permission (rank hath its privileges) and create a profesional-quality recording studio. (Harry, Louis, and Niall, who had not yet been allowed up – Zayn and Liam wished that honour to belong first to their families – had been understanding, but this had not stopped them rewriting a Madness hit as they thought appropriate, and obnoxiously singing it at them at every chance: _Our house, in the middle of the Peak_....)

It was, then, in late October, all crimson and gilt, that the Maliks and the Paynes arrived as Zayn and Liam’s first guests at Bent Clough (Doniya, Ruth, and Nicola had exchanged a glance at that and stifled the urge to howl with laughter). The duke and the Nawab were present to greet them, although not stopping with the boys: ostensibly on the ground that His Grace had been the owner prior, and had a few words to impart about the property and its history before toddling away. (Zayn’s parents exchanged a glance of suppressed hilarity, being perfectly well aware of what was afoot and of the fact that Charles and Nobby should be no further away than Longnor in the event of emergency.)

‘So,’ said Zayn’s father, with the ghost of a wink towards Liam’s, once the duke and the Nawab had departed. ‘Settling down at last, _beta,_ are you? Nice house: does a civil partnership or a civil marriage come with it?’

Zayn, wrong-footed, simply stared at his father, jaw hanging open in a fashion which in anyone else on the planet – even Liam, even Harry – should have been unattractive.

‘You did not, I hope, think you were fooling anyone, _jaan._ Or that my meter, or your mother’s, would be high? You are a man grown, and neither I nor your uncles and aunts nor your imam can be the keeper of _your_ conscience – although there’s one aunt at least will throw you a Pride parade.’

‘ _Baba...._ ’

‘Only – I do not say, “Be discreet”; but, _be intelligent._ I don’t wish your sisters or your mother to endure a backlash; and I will not see you or Liam hurt, targeted. Liam: come here. Welcome to the family, my boy.’

Zayn was even now unable to grasp what had happened and was happening. ‘It’s. It’s really all right? That I’m. Well. Gay?’

His father snorted, patting a dazed but complaisant Liam on the shoulder as he turned his attention to his son. ‘You’re not. I don’t even credit you are bisexual. What you are – and it makes all the rest of it moot, regardless of what your orientation is or might otherwise have been – what you are is Liam’s, and in love, and contrariwise. However.’ His voice took on an awful timbre, the patriarch to the life. ‘Do not mistake me. This does not relieve you of the obligation. I want grandchildren, even if your mother is far too young to be a grandmother.’

Zayn sagged in relief, Geoff and Karen – being nearest – swiftly propping him up until Liam could reach his side. ‘You and that one,’ said he, taking Liam’s hand. ‘ _He’s_ already named them: anyone object to Yusuf Geoffrey Walter and Mariam Patricia Malala?’

It wasn’t, for once, Karen Payne alone who started the waterworks then.

* * *

The others had understood – of course – Liam’s and Zayn’s wish to have their families be their first true guests and visitors at Bent Clough; it did not mean they weren’t going to take the piss whilst they waited for their own chance to see the new place. They’d looked out everything they could find about the area, the farm, the parish, feeling as invested in it all as Zayn and Liam themselves (a habit by now ingrained in every man jack of One Direction, who had left boundaries and to some extent individuality far behind, long ago): they’d studied snaps on Geograph, read up on the parish on Wikipedia, even tracked down the parish mag. online.

‘Y’ know,’ said Harry, low and slow even by his standards, with a smiling sweetness lurking at the heart of his words, ‘with Winter coming....’

Louis wasted no time in firing back a bit of Game of Thrones sark, overridden though it was by Niall’s intoning, in perfect mimicry of a reader on the Beeb, ‘There are warnings of gales in all areas. The General Synopsis....’

‘’M only saying,’ said Harry. ‘They could get snowed in for _days._ ’

Louis was all but screaming with his very campiest laughter. ‘Oh, _what_ would they do then? Our Liam planned this, you _know_ he did –’

‘Prayin’ for a blizzard,’ crowed Niall, ‘doin’ – are t’ere snow dances, like rain dances t’e Native tribes in Ameriky do?’

* * *

‘So, Liam,’ said Yaser, deadpan, an arm slung around Liam’s broad shoulders. ‘You chose the place for the weather, I think? Snowed in come Winter, the two of you, and – it’s as well men don’t get pregnant, or Joe and Molly and – Baby Karen, I’ll wager, and who knows who else – ’d get here much earlier, eh, every September or so like clockwork?’

All four of the parents laughed like so many drains as Liam and Zayn turned a colour found commonly only in sunsets.

‘Hope, when you bought the furniture, Our Kid,’ grinned Geoff, even as Karen batted at his arm, ‘you made certain the bed could hold up to anything, anyroadup.’

‘Ignore him, love,’ said Karen to a blushing Zayn.

Nicola, in another room wisely keeping the younger Malik girls (and specially so Safaa) away from this parental ribaldry, could hear the boys’ twin groans, their parents’ glee, Doniya’s bray of laughter, and Ruth’s sudden and wholly unladylike guffaw. She really, she reflected, did _not_ want to know – and damned if the smaller girls wanted to wonder. ‘Let’s look at the kitchen,’ said she, wisely: brass and copper, slate and stone and a vast fireplace, and an Aga which cost more than many flats she’d seen, ought to be an excellent distraction. (It was, she reflected, a good thing that the aprons and oven gloves and all sorts her brother – young idiot in love that he was – had also bought in, were baker’s stripe by pattern and not – God knew what the parents and the in-laws’d’ve said, making a meal of it – cockerel pattern. Dirty-minded oldies, and they were all _sober,_ at that.)

* * *

‘I wonder,’ said Louis, all pert and bright-eyed like a Beatrix Potter rodent, and as mischievous, ‘do you think Yaser has twigged yet to the fact it’s a _marital_ home?’

Harry snorted. ‘Love, he’s had them sussed for _ages._ ’

Niall swallowed an improbable quantity of his cheese and pickle sarnie in one go to add, ‘B’ now, t’ey’ll be on t’ t’e mehndi.’

* * *

‘You said.’ Liam spoke quietly and seriously, hoping that the others were sufficiently distracted in teasing Zayn to ignore him and Yaser for two minutes. ‘Civil, um.’

‘Do you know how to kill an imam? Tell him you want him to preside over a same-sex marriage and then don’t give him CPR as he turns blue. Whatever the local vicar might wish, if he’s sympathetic, he’s not allowed; the local Catholic priest is even less allowed; and the imam.... If you lads are to make this formal, then, Yes, it must be civil, surely.

‘But I know you. If there is one man I know who does not require a public vow and a public record to keep his private word, Liam Payne, it is you. This.... Do not mistake me. None of this, in a perfect world, is what I’d have liked for my son, my only son. But you and he are what and who you are; and if this must be, there is no one – _no one_ – with whom I’d rather see Zayn. Whom I trust Zayn to, you understand.

‘How does your friend the duke find this?’

‘As a churchwarden? Or otherwise? As a churchwarden, he disapproves but supports us all the same: said summat about the “supremacy of the individual conscience” being an article of faith, I didn’t understand it but I don’t question it. Otherwise, his Libertarianism on this outweighs, he says, his innate conservatism.’

‘He is a wise man; I am glad he now has the management of you. And his views? They are mine also.’ And Yaser pulled Liam into a fierce and fatherly embrace.

* * *

‘I’m glad, son,’ said Geoff to a Zayn who was beginning to wonder if ever he’d be able to leave off blushing, ‘ _damned_ glad, as Our Liam has you. You’re good for him, you are. And I’m damned glad you’ve the new management you have.’

* * *

Geoff had reason to be glad of the boys’ new management. Between the duke and Matthew Freud, no longer was the despicable _Sun_ the channel through which contrived narratives and outright porky pies were shovelled at the public and the fans. When Clumber Management had news of the band to release – and it might be partial and, on occasion, require a certain amount of finesse, not to say _suppressio veri,_ but the duke never resorted to _suggestio falsi_ no matter what the emergency – when Clumber wished to release news of the band and its doings, the duke did so, depending upon the character and appeal and demographic of the news and its targets, through the _Torygraph,_ the _Grauniad,_ or _The Times._ Respectable and mature musicians, said the duke rather too regularly, wanted and merited respectable and mature coverage in respectable and mature newspapers.

This did not mean that His Grace, a man who’d been one of Maggie’s (and Norman Tebbit’s) backroom boys when fresh from Oxford and who’d done whispered deeds as an Int Corps officer in Iraq and the ’Stan, was above chicane and the dark arts of spin. To the contrary: he was, after all, a member of that group – the hereditary peerage – which had stayed at the top of the heap for centuries through just such means, and, if on the wrong side of the blanket, a Stuart. The Malets had been sinuous survivors; the Clares, a byword; and the Holleses (and Pelhams and Clintons), political animals to their bones; but to be a Fitzjames was after all to be of the blood of Henry Tudor – Henry 7th  – and of Darnley with his plots, of Mary and her cunning and James 6th  and 1st  who destroyed the Ruthvens in the centre of their own web of conspiracy; of John of Gaunt and of the first Charles, who despised no weapon however base when a kingdom hung upon the issue.... The Stuart cause, being lost, has acquired a romantic tint, and is seen as through gauze: the Stuarts and their adherents are thought of as martyrs to a concept of duty which might have been mistaken yet which was necessarily noble; but in fact, whether wary amidst the murderous Scots nobility whom they were ready to assassinate in turn, or in their last secret agreements with France for gold which Parliament and Protestantism would not grant, they were, as the duke well knew and sensed in himself, the most ruthless line of kings the Three Kingdoms ever produced, bar not even the Plantagenets.

The fact was, the boys generally, and Liam and Zayn in particular, had been afforded this idyll and allowed to get on with their lives without the intrusions of Fleet Street, only by the duke’s – and Freud’s – cunning. The slow, drip-by-drip destruction, deserved as it was, of Modest and its reputation, had been carefully calibrated and timed to distract attention from anything else the band were getting up to. And when it had appeared that Zayn’s travels might just possibly be known or guessed at, and might leak, the duke had been swift in action. When it seemed the Press were about to trail ‘One Direction Member Gets Religion? Rumours of a pilgrimage swirl’, Charles had trotted a grinning, shrugging Niall out to confirm that he had indeed popped over to Rome and had an audience of the Pope, and been enlisted in the Holy Father’s anti-poverty campaigns (the duke’s own view, which he for once was sufficiently politic to express only privately, was that the silly Argie bugger knew less of economics than did a gib-cat).

* * *

‘And this room?’ It was evident it was likely to be the best in the house, with a South-East light and, from what they had already seen, noble proportions. Tricia giggled. ‘Did you keep it for the master bedroom, then, loves – selfish of you,’ teased she.

Zayn, unable to speak around the lump in his throat, shook his head and rather gingerly opened the door.

Yaser’s intake of breath was loud in the silence.

‘Liam said. Well. If it were best room in house, there weren’t but one purpose it wanted to have.’ His parents immediately enfolded him – and Liam – in hugs, there on the threshold of what Liam had insisted be set up as Zayn’s prayer-room.

* * *

‘Fathead,’ said Niall. Louis was rabbiting on, with increasingly scabrous and physically incredible detail, about Liam’s and Zayn’s imagined wedding – and wedding night (which Harry was beginning to find troubling, for sufficiently obvious reasons).

‘Your _face_ is fatter than it was,’ said Louis, snottier than three midshipmen.

‘Feck aff,’ said Niall, spraying Rich Tea crumbs on the ‘f’s.

Harry, irenically, simply began singing: ‘Have a cuppa tea....’ The past month, and the duke, had made them all huge fans of The Kinks, and Louis could not resist joining in, nor could Niall once he swallowed the last of his frankly unlikely handful of biscuit.

* * *

Yaser, plying a discreet handkerchief, had drawn Liam aside after wiping his eyes and clearing his throat several times. ‘You are the _only_ one I trust my son to. And the grandchildren to come. How are the local C of E voluntary-aided schools? Because I trust those, also, and – you must never think, Liam, you must change for us. Only for better reasons, you understand? If you are moved to be. Never for us.’

Liam nodded, firmly, and patted Yaser on the back. There was, even now, in all the boys, but specially in Liam and Zayn (although his Modest-damaged image, for all its subsequent repair, blinded many to it), a strain of fugitive sweetness and innocence (although in private and in bed, well...). Mind, with Louis in particular, it was sometimes difficult to remember the fact.

* * *

‘You’re just tetchy, Irish,’ sarked Louis, ‘because with the beards sent away, you’re forced to get off your lily-white arse and actually _pull_ a bird rather than shagging the Modest rent-girl squad – all mod. cons., wasn’t it, with company’s own pussy laid on – ’

Harry wasn’t having it: they were _not_ going to start out teasing and end up quarrelling. ‘More like “Come Dancing”, it was, “all for a cuddle and a kiss upon the cheek”, eh, Nialler?’

Louis tossed his head pettishly. ‘Oh, Hazza, if you insist on making it all about your … _kinks...._ ’

* * *

‘Well, we had Andrew Preston in,’ said Liam, innocently proud: ‘bloke as does all the historic restoration and that, ’round here. We’re lucky, Mr Woolley – he’s the expert stonemason, joiner, and plasterer – and the plumber, Mr Keeling –’

‘You’ve settled in already,’ smiled Geoff.

Zayn shook his head, indulgently. ‘It’s _Liam,_ yeah? _We’ve_ been in possession a fortnight, like, but he were down here before that, secretly buying the place and all. He’s already friends with the local farmers – because he _is_ going to have beasts yet, just you wait – and shopkeepers and all; found the caff in Longnor as serves vegetarian bangers with breakfast, all for me (has Rachel and Mandy eating out of his hand already, too, he does); found the cheese shop in Hartington; ’s hand in glove with the Foxes down the Craft Centre – that’s their work, those chairs, and Abbie made that ginger cake; _and_ he’s a regular, now, at the Old Cheshire Cheese – good nosh, though a tied house, and the menu’s all over grocers’ apostrophes – _and_ the Royal Oak in Hurdlow (that’s a CAMRA pub and free house) and the Pack Horse in Crowdecote (local real ales there, too): Thursday’s Quiz Night, not that Li stands a chance, do you, love?’

* * *

The duke was wont to observe that Niall and The Breener most looked alike, or at least strongly akin, when – something the public rarely saw – they _weren’t_ smiling. It was clearly visible just now in Niall. When those blue eyes turned – in his own father’s words – ‘coulder and stormier nor Bantry Bay in a winter’s gale’; when the mouth thinned from its laughter and shut like a trap beneath that dangerously short upper lip; when that stubborn chin came forward mulishly: it was well to stand out of his road, lest one find just how rocky the road to Dublin could be.

‘And that will do, you tiny tit,’ said he, firmly. ‘No, Harry, I know you try to reason with him and correct him in private so he’s not shamed before us, but tonight? Tonight I amn’t having it, at all, at all. Is it t’at you’ve separation anxiety with Liam and Zayn away? Or what is it, Tommo? Catch yourself on, my maneen, it’s not on. What for would you be bitter at t’eir happiness, and come t’e acid wit’ me and your own Harry?’

‘Oh, _really,_ Nialler –’

‘No!’ It was very nearly a roar. ‘You’ll tell me, What is up your arse? Because you’re being more of a shit with each passing hour tonight. Is it t’at Zayn and Payno are aff to t’eir new retreat?’

Louis turned his head, ostensibly in disdain and so as not to look at Niall – or Harry; but they saw him blinking back tears. ‘Why would I care? There’s nothing will get _me_ out of London, now I’m in it, and just because we always said we’d live near each other, even after the band....’

‘Y’ know,’ said Harry, earnestly and glacially slowly, ‘it’s only a country place for them, a get-away, not where they’ll be living year-’round....’

‘It’s nothing to me,’ repeated Louis, sharply. ‘But if you don’t think Payno is already on the parish council and the two of them are the Village Green Preservation Society, you’re not clever. We were _first._ We were supposed to be first in, in … all this. You and me, Haz. But, no, the nation’s future sweethearts had to – Jesus. It’s the end –’

‘Lou....’

‘T’e feck d’ y’ mean, “t’e end”?’

Harry cut off any further questioning, or any attempt by Louis to reply. ‘We’re free now, Lou. We can come out tomorrow if we like, you know that.’

‘What does it matter? The band’s ending anyway. Up in the Peak District playing happy families.... And I don’t even believe in this freedom you keep banging on about. What makes you so certain we’re not being led by our noses all over again?’

‘Um. Maybe the new contracts and their terms? And why would we be ending?’

‘Are you quite finished? You’re meant to be cleverer than this. The –’

‘It’s daft y’ are, Tommo. T’e difference is, t’e duke is willing to shade t’e trut’ _for_ us, not lie _to_ us.’

‘Well, _you’ve_ become trusting. I don’t … I just can’t believe it. All this change....’ They all knew Louis did not do well with change: it preyed upon every fear he had, and had always done, from his childhood to his closeting. ‘It’s too good to be true. Good things don’t happen to me.’

Niall simply stared at him; and Harry, not unreasonably affronted, said, ‘Oi!’

‘I mean they don’t last. Zayn and Liam are leaving us, can’t you feel it? Pulling away. When the four of us were all in the closet together, there was – it was bad, but we were bound to _stick_ together – but now.... They’ll leave, to play country squires somewhere. And Nialler will leave, when there’s nothing to stay for. And you. You’ll leave, in the end. Everyone does: like they always left Mum in the end. Like they always leave me. Or am I the only one noticed that Daddy Direction and his spouse-to-be are the only two of us whose parents have stayed married all along?’ Louis was weeping openly now, fat, silent tears without sobbing, the weeping of a child who had lost all hope.

‘Jaysus,’ breathed Niall, looking helplessly at Harry.

* * *

Liam snapped a picture: the misty autumn moors and the rough grazing; a hedge of gorse, the dry-stone wall (its copestones starred and spangled with stonecrop and lichen, and as green as the boles of mossy and lichened trees); the stone barn, the tumulus, and the hawthorn – and just in the corner, a recognisable shoulder (a dorsal view) in an iconic leather jacket. The fans, he knew, should recognise that shoulder almost as well as he did at three hundred paces; and management – wondrous, miraculous new management – no longer cared, and indeed was encouraging. There was no point in tagging Zayn; he simply posted the snap, with the legend, _perfectttt veiw_ and _alll it wwnats is the lads here_ and _cmon tommo haz &nialler come visittt,._

* * *

‘Do you mean that, you fucker?’

‘’Course we do. You can be here by lunch, and stop as long as you like. The families are leaving after lunch – and, yes, they all know now, officially, and they’re well chuffed.’ Liam spoke tenderly: he had heard Louis’s voice when choked with tears but rarely, but he recognised it when he did hear it. ‘What we want now is you – all three of you. ’S not a home yet until _you’ve_ stopped for bit.’

Louis did his best to sound like himself: the self he presented to the world, and even to his intimates, as a matter of sheer self-preservation. ‘I’m _not_ bringing a house-warming gift.’

‘Y’ are,’ said Liam, smiling softly. ‘ _You._ ’

‘Payno....’ Louis had too many things he might have said to say any one of them; so he simply rang off.

* * *

Harry, naturally, had wished to talk things out with Louis, help him to clear his head (possibly by giving just that); and Niall was all for his doing so, alarmed as he had been by The Tommo’s wee bit-een breakdown when he’d thought – they’d all thought – the issues so long building had been addressed.

Both were inclined to think that Liam and Zayn had meant well – and it was hardly fair to blame Liam either for the Instagram post or for allowing Louis to treat it as an invitation – but both wondered if the result: Louis’ manic seizure of the moment to immerse himself in logistics and Network Rail’s website, and consequent unavailability to _talk_ about his issues: was really a Good Thing.

‘Mother o’ God,’ said Niall, quietly, as Louis embarked upon a whirlwind course of packing. ‘When we _get_ there, my Haz, lock the two o’ ye in a room until y’ sort him.’

‘Maybe,’ said Harry, determinedly hopeful, ‘once we _are_ there, he’ll be calm enough that I _can._ ’

* * *

Louis was – although not to the extent Zayn was – no particular supporter of mornings; but, with a gleam of maniacal determination in his eye, he had the three of them at Euston in good time for the 8.0 am train to Stockport, and change for Buxton, arriving an hour and eleven minutes before noon there with ample time to make it to Bent Clough and luncheon. Niall and Harry, exchanging worried glances whenever Louis’ attention was distracted from them, thought it politic to be meek until they had all reached the privacy and sanctuary of Liam’s-and-Zayn’s new place in the countryside: at which point they intended to go all Ratty and Mole – with, with luck, Liam playing Mr Badger and Zayn the Otter – on their very own Mr Tommo-Toad.

* * *

‘Ponton’s meetin’ them in Buxton,’ said the duke, comfortably, as he rose to shout another pint of Noggin Filler for himself (trust Charles to get stuck in to local ales brewed at Chatsworth) and lemon squash for Nobby – ‘and whatever you’re having for yourself, landlord’. ‘Horan tells me Tomlinson’s in a rare panic. I shall be settin’ up the comin’s-out as soon as I may – the strain’s startin’ t’ tell.’

As the duke of Taunton trotted towards the bar, the door opened, with a gust of wind and an elderly gentleman who incarnated mild, embarrassed inquisitiveness, as of a man unsure he’s in the right place and not at all certain of his welcome whether he is or no. The regulars looked up, nodded, and returned placidly to their pints and pies; the publican and the staff looked like the lucky, disbelieving recipients of an early Christmas. Charles Taunton, for his part, simply snorted.

‘Stoker! Good God, man – what are you having? You remember Nobby, I trust?’

* * *

When Louis arrived – Harry and Niall effectively being relegated to the same status as the rest of his impedimenta – at Bent Clough, it was not unlike dropping a quantity of shot onto a stone floor. And a good deal noisier. He greeted everyone with manic effusion; mock-insulted his hosts and their new place; and asked how soon luncheon should be over, so they could go down the nearest pub.

Harry – and Niall – held their breaths: there been no time and no way to warn Liam, or Zayn, what sort of mood Louis was in. And for a moment, they _could_ not breathe, believing that Liam, in his innocence, was saying precisely the wrong thing.

‘I’m not taking you to my local, Tommo. Not in this state you seem to be in.’

Before anyone – Louis particularly – could say something irreparable, though, Liam, smiling kindlily, went on, as he commonly did, to say precisely the right thing. ‘After the first twenty times on your best behaviour, they can begin getting used to your brand of insanity, you’ll be a regular by then. That way, when we’re OAP Direction and the oldest band since the Stones – me shaving me yead to hide the baldness, you fighting Niall for the dye, Haz and Zed shot through with grey and looking distinguished, yeah? – we’ll still be welcome.’

‘You. You want me to be? Even then?’

‘Mate, you’ll be stopping here often, you may as well, we’ve decades ahead of us.’

Harry exchanged an uneasy glance with Zayn, who looked no more enthused at the prospect of having Louis effectively move in on his and Liam’s new marital retreat than was Harry. Yet Louis was suddenly unwound, and beaming softly, and neither of them – indeed, none of them – could bear to ruin that.

‘Well,’ said Louis, in a new and blessedly natural tone, ‘show us around, then.’

* * *

‘Up to something, Charles? I hear you’ve transferred Bent Clough to a Trust.’

‘Come, Stoker, I don’t ask you what estate-related dodges you get up to at Chatsworth. _Or_ your habit of tourin’ other stately homes incognito to filch ideas for the old pile – you’re half the reason I don’t run tours at Wolfdown House.’

They grinned at each other, teasingly. ‘All right,’ said the duke of Devonshire to the duke of Taunton, ‘all right. But if you _have_ introduced your new, pet popstars into my country, I expect, _when_ they’re here, they muck in. Tombolas, charity appeal quiz nights, carolling....’

‘Oh, if ever they spend time here rather than in the Woolfonts, old man, I make sure they’ll bear a hand....’

* * *

The duke of Taunton was well aware (and quite pleased with himself, too) that he’d stepped on almost every set of toes in the music industry. And he was as well aware, with a malign joy and wicked amusement, that the owners of those trodden digits now obsessively monitored as best they might his every action, going as they did in terror of what he might do next.

It was, and he quite anticipated it should be, impossible that the pub landlord should not immediately post to social media that he had two dukes and a Nawab in his bar. And Charles Taunton was not a man to be surprised or anything but chuffed that this post, quite as immediately, should cause a great deal of _Christ-what’s-the-bugger-playing-at-now_ heartburn amongst the better part of the music industry, within a quarter-hour’s of the posting.

He was entirely prepared to leak a good reason why he was in the Peak District at all: one which did not in any way attract notice towards Bent Clough. And that he had now been snapped with Stoker Cavendish, the duke of Devonshire, did not at all alter, but rather lent an added air of verisimilitude, to that cover story.

After all, there was no reason why Niall, with his links to Derby City, ought _not_ to be in the running to succeed Stoker as Chancellor of the University of Derby....

* * *

Liam frowned – kindlily and earnestly. He was, as Zayn knew all too well, the sort who rose at an appalling hour to train, to work out and (weather and venue permitting) to run; and for all the blandishments of music as a training soundtrack, he was also, and particularly now in his maturity ( _householders, dear God, they were_ householders _now_ ), the sort who listened to the Shipping Forecast.

‘We’ll do that after lunch. The family want to get on the road and then on the trains as soon as may be. And you lot may, actually, stop longer than you’d planned, Tommo: haven’t you heard the weather?’

Liam certainly had done: the first gales of the season were imminent, and the forecast had not improved since the 5.20 Shipping Forecast that morning: rather the reverse. _There are warnings of gales in all areas except … the General Synopsis … deepening rapidly … Gale Eight to Storm Ten, perhaps Violent Storm Eleven later … very high to phenomenal … squally wintry showers … moderate or poor … moderate icing … Inshore Waters Forecast to twelve miles offshore … General Situation … Intense areas of low pressure will bring very unsettled and very windy conditions to the United Kingdom during the next few days with the prospect of very stormy winds at times in the North … Cape Wrath to Rattray Head including Orkney … backing westerly … rain, then squally wintry showers … outlook for the following 24 hours … Westerly or South-Westerly Five to Seven, increasing Seven to Severe Gale Nine, occasionally Storm Ten in North for a time. Moderate in East, otherwise rough or very rough, but high or very high in North. Rain, then squally wintry showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor … Bridlington … falling rapidly...._

‘Besides,’ said Zayn, quickly, before Louis could reply, ‘it’s lamb.’

Liam beamed. ‘Proper local Derbyshire Gritstone lamb – we’re lucky to have a good butcher....’

Louis rolled his eyes.

* * *

Cyril Ponton also had an eye to the weather – and two families to get to the station, and one motor. Then again, he also had his employer, the duke, whose spirit animal, it had been said, was Richard Hammond (although the duke was a trifle shorter).

Naturally, then, without his asking, the duke (who prided himself on his foresight – and everything else, really –) turned up with what Ponton first thought a hire car just as Ponton was ready to drive to Bent Clough. As it happened, it was not a hire car. He’d borrowed Stoker’s, leaving his fellow duke to share a ploughman’s with the Nawab down the pub.

‘Right, Ponton, what are we waitin’ upon? Let’s collect this lot before the weather turns dirtier yet.’

* * *

Luncheon had been just short of hasty, in light of the threatening weather, but good, and joyous. Herb-crusted lamb chops; dauphinoise potatoes; cabbage; and Bakewell pudding ( _not_ Bakewell tart) for afters: Louis enjoyed it all as much as anyone, but was hard pressed (and Harry pressed hard on his thigh when it looked as if he were giving way to temptation) not to sark about local food and Liam’s and Zayn’s overnight transformation into the local squires.

It was hardly even a surprise – although it was rather flattering – when the duke turned up alongside Ponton, to drive the Maliks to the station even as Ponton drove the Paynes. His Grace, quoting Ruskin (inevitably) on the former Manchester, Buxton, Matlock, and Midlands Junction Railway (‘every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton’), was in his usual tearing haste, pausing just long enough to tell the lads to be thinking about when they wished to have their coming-out press conference, and to check their emails as he, the duke, had some ideas on just how to handle it.... Liam and Zayn exchanged an amused glance, but they as much as Harry and Niall noted how Louis relaxed further at the news.

* * *

What time Charles Taunton returned to the pub, the Nawab and Stoker had been joined – to the utter Christmas-come-early delight of the busily-tweeting landlord and his staff – by Lord Edward Manners, brother of the duke of Rutland, who had come over from Haddon Hall, having heard that Charles and Nobby were On Manœuvres: which Charles assuredly was, not least in having the shrewdness to snap and tweet a picture of the four of them (knowing as he did that the publican’s tweets and Instagrams were fluttering many a dovecot), with the hashtags, #GloriousTwelfthNextYear and #shootingsyndicate and #grouse. If people suspect one cover-story, after all, giving them a second throws them wholly off the scent....

Lord Edward laughed. ‘You _are_ up to something, Charles.’

‘When is he not?’ That was Stoker, just pipping Nobby at the post.

‘I think,’ said the Nawab, ‘it is time we took you into our confidence.’ They all leant forrards, and spoke in low tones (never an easy task for Charles Taunton).

‘If you say so,’ said that duke. ‘Right, then: let me put you in the picture. What we’re goin’ on with is this. I have, Stoker, you shrewdly-guessin’ bugger, transferred Bent Clough to a Trust: for young Payne and young Malik. You know of course I’ve taken on their management, with Nobby and few others –’

‘Yes,’ said Lord Edward, dry as Beaune. ‘One had heard: it did rather make the news. What I can’t fathom, is, _Why?_ I mean, no doubt they’re nice lads, but....’

‘I’m havin’ fun.’

Stoker snorted. ‘Turning the music industry on its ear, and putting a flea in that same ear? Of course you are, Charles, your hobby is stamping on the tenderest toes you can find, in hobnailed boots: always has been.’

‘There _is_ more than that to it, else I should not be involved,’ said the Nawab, severely.

Charles was undaunted, unblushing, and the literal definition – as always – of incorrigible. ‘Quite: you always were the high-minded one, Nobby. See here, the buggers they’d been with and all that shower of an industry – appallin’ sods, really – quite simply fucked them over, for yonks. They wanted out – got the Americans on side –’

‘Mm.’

‘But that wasn’t enough. What they wanted was someone with a bit of pull, here, in this country.’

‘Which, naturally, was you?’

‘Which was whoever young Simon Hales-Owen could think of.’

‘Ah. The old school ties that bind.’

‘Well, quite. And when I found just how – and why – they were _bein’_ treated appallin’ly.... I’m a churchwarden, damn it all, but I’m no one’s vicar, father, or moral tutor. And I didn’t leave Margaret’s service without my Libertarianism intact: to the contrary. And when this was coupled with the sheer racial animus directed against young Malik....’

Lord Edward winced. ‘I can see that was Not On.’

‘Damned right. So I stepped in.’

‘I take it,’ said Stoker, quietly, ‘that you _are_ in fact hinting that one or more of the young popstars are gay?’

‘Horan’s the only one _not_ in a same-sex relationship: solid ones, too, and within the band.’

Eddie shook his head: not disapprovingly; but – he had nieces. ‘Styles and Tomlinson – so that means … well, obviously, you gave – “transferred”, Charles, _really_ – you _gave_ Malik and Payne a country retreat, no doubt for a peppercorn knowing you, so they’ll be the other couple, of course. And I take it you’re planning an announcement for them all?’

‘Yes. They’re ready, and they wish it.’

‘Norton or Carr?’

‘Come, Eddie: serious musicians with a serious announcement want a serious setting, to be taken seriously. ’S a _reason_ I introduced ’em to m’ tailors some time ago.’

Stoker and Eddie simply looked at one another, trying _not_ to speculate what Charles might be planning _this_ time.

* * *

Charles Taunton had stepped away for a moment: Irving Azoff, who was as assiduous in trying – so far as anyone _could_ do – to keep an eye on the duke and his plans, had rung up.

‘... my dear man, of course it’s my decision. You secured the rights of management in North America and other less civilised places, but when I bought out Modest’s contract – which _you_ wished me to do, as you could not – I succeeded to the dominant, and Home, position … of course I intended to advise you, man, I’ve not yet settled or finalised plans even with the lads … yes, of course, but do wait until I _know …_ oh, Christmas and the New Year seem promisin’, really … my dear Azoff, you were chosen, y’ know, for your reputation for fightin’ your clients’ corner: don’t go wobbly now … I shall send you an email....’

Stoker and Eddie had taken advantage of Charles’ absence to speak with HH the Nawab.

‘He’s not putting you in an impossible position, I hope.’

‘Oh, he did that when he set the field, both at school and when we were up.’ Nobby had suffered much under Charles’ captaincy of the Eton XI and OUCC (Authentics and then Blues), not least when Charles had insisted that Nobby field at slip, which he did brilliantly but never really felt comfortable doing. Particularly as Captain of the Authentics early on, a captaincy sometimes compared by contemporaries to Nelson for genius and Bligh for charm, Charles had been said to put the ‘tick’ in being a ’Tic. Which (chorus: _tutti_ ) had not bothered Charles in the least. ‘Now? I am content; indeed, I agree with him. I deprecate, for religious reasons, non-celibacy in homosexuals – and unmarried heterosexuals, for that matter: just as Charles does and the C of E ostensibly does. But I am no one’s imam; and so far as civil society goes, well.... Also: I will fight Zayn’s corner against all comers, full stop: you understand and appreciate that point.’

‘Right,’ said Charles, rejoining them. ‘Now. You two understand commerce and trade nowadays, and brandin’, what with runnin’ the family piles and cadging pence from trippers traipsin’ through; let me tell you what I have in mind. Suggestions are welcome....’

* * *

‘It’s not your job,’ said Harry, slowly, ‘to placate Lou and calm him down. ’S mine.’

Liam knocked their shoulders together. ‘You can do that _tonight_.’

* * *

‘Trailing, are we, Charles? Creating, ah, “buzz”?’

‘The hacks and the public want to understand, before anything else, that these are _hommes s_ _é_ _rieuses._ ’

* * *

‘ _Tonight,_ Haz. _Later._ Right now,’ said Liam, cheerfully and loudly so everyone could hear, ‘everyone pick up a draught excluder – Denise made them, bespoke: she’s the one runs the cushions makers at Meadowside, over Newtown way –’ Louis simply stared, and theatrically shook his head – ‘and let’s get cracking, the weather’s getting worse by the forecast, come morning it’ll be bitter as Tommo –’

‘Fuck you ever so, ta,’ said Louis: but he laughed as he said it. Liam gave the nearest approximation to a wink he was capable of to a gobsmacked Harry.

‘C’mon, now, follow my and Zayn’s lead, unless you want cold toes....’

Harry suppressed a grumble about cold toes, and Lou’s habit of warming _his_ cold toes by cavalierly putting his freezing feet on Harry’s nice warm calves of a night, _just_ when Harry was nice and toasty beneath the duvet and drifting off to sleep.

* * *

The captains and the kings – or at any rate, the duke of Devonshire and Lord Edward Manners – had departed whilst the departing was good. The tumult and the shouting, naturally, did not die so long as the duke of Taunton was awake and in possession of his voice.

Even over the telephone.

‘The point, Peter, is that you lot even now _own_ a goodish deal of the hole, for all you got shed of Hickleton … no, damn it, I’m an MCC member, cricket’s all I give a damn for, if ever _I_ got entangled with bloody _footer_ – and League Sodding One at that, God help us – it’d be Swindon Town or Yeovil Town, at local importunity – no … damn it all, Peter … of course I’ll guarantee the damned thing … the point is the League shan’t dare to say you nay, any more than they should _me_ … well, why don’t you _meet_ the lad, I’ll arrange it, before you wax all disdainful … well, let one of your children do it, then, if you like … I like to think, Peter, you’ve better judgement than did your grandfather....’

He rang off.

‘Halifax, I take it?’ The Nawab was coolly amused.

‘Naturally. He’ll do it – although he mayn’t know it just yet. Now, who do I know owns a gallery?’

* * *

By teatime, Bent Clough was battened down, and a markedly content Louis was cuddled, rather obviously pleased with himself and all but putting his tongue out at Harry (and Niall, who really did not care so long as the sandwiches and cakes held out: Niall’s conception of tea was, really, of a period of incessant noshing between luncheon and dinner), between a tolerant Liam and a slightly less tolerant Zayn.

‘You know,’ said Zayn, ‘there’s a reason we don’t all live together, like.’ Louis tensed, slightly. ‘Because we _work_ together. Come along, Haz, Lou – you too, Nialler, if you can tear yourself away from the Battenbergs and the Victoria sponge. You may as well see the studio we’ve put in, we’ll be recording in it for the next forty years.’

Louis perked, jumped, and commanded the others up, all but wagging his tail.

* * *

‘Tony, you bought out Agnew’s the other year, didn’t you. D’ y’ do anything contemporary with it?’

* * *

Louis, excited though he was by the studio (and grateful that the others were as excited, and more grateful yet that Liam had, remarkably, not joined them, as that should have meant the whole thing became instead a technical discussion between, for all practical purposes, Liam and Niall), took a moment and took Zayn aside.

‘I’ve been. Well.’ Louis was not merely trying to be quiet; his voice was actually small and uncertain, in way he almost never allowed anyone to see and hear.

‘No,’ said Zayn, with the quirk of a half-smile. ‘You’ve _not_ been well.’

‘Are you quite finished?’

Zayn grinned fully in response. ‘ _There’s_ my Louis. I know: you’ve worked yourself into a state, like, thinking our finding a place and all was the first step to ending the band. Never happening, mate: all right? Unless you get clingier even than this – bloody koala, you are – and start trying to live in our pockets to where I’ve no Liam-time, yeah? Not that Haz’d wear that for five minutes.’

Louis blushed, and hung his head. Zayn hugged him, and found himself suddenly in the midst of a group hug which was missing the only participant he actually cared about.

Then Liam slipped in, and wrapt Zayn and the others in a bear’s embrace, and all was well.

* * *

They dined (the preparations for which had been what had delayed Liam earlier), the lads at Bent Clough, in the great kitchen, on bubble-and-squeak made from the luncheon left-overs and the last of the Bakewell pudding with a bit of Peakland cheese. This was followed by an allusive bit of healing talk between them all, reaffirming their bonds without tearing open scars; and a nightcap and an early night (somewhat to Niall’s disappointment, but Liam was full of dire warning about early mornings and a full day ahead).

Harry had been pleased that the day had gone well, and that Liam and Zayn had seemed to know, to sense beyond knowledge, just what reassurances Louis had been in want of; but he had not changed his own plans. He knew that there was one means of calming Louis, making him pliable and content, which only he could manage, and he did just that in one of the guest bedrooms, giving his lover a seeing-to which was not likely to be forgotten. After all, it ought, thought he, to be a crime, proscribed by act of Parliament, to ignore one’s good fortune when one’s (absurdly huge) hands were at liberty to rove where they listed, and one’s own sole lover, one’s first and best and always, with those magnificent thighs and that incomparable bum, was so eager and made such delicious, breathy, needy, whimpering noises, and the need blazed in them both, and home was, be they where they might, right there, so near, in those encircling arms and that incredible arse....

There was no less passion, but a good deal more steadiness, in their hosts’ boudoir, followed by Lethean sleep. As for Niall, he slept contentedly, drifting off immediately to mild speculation, and to mild certainty in answer, that, as things were going right at last, it might be time to choose (at last), and begin the process of settling down: he no longer dreaded the flight of his latest light o’ love upon meeting this mad second family he’d somehow been dowered with....

* * *

Charles duke of Taunton finished his own night – well after Nobby had retired to his own rooms, with the air of relief which possesses a man who, however annoying his business partner, is free for a few days from his imperious if beloved wife (Charles made no bones in stating that the Begum, like his own sister-in-law Lady Crispin, was Mrs T in a different guise and sphere) – rather late, but with much glee. He sent a last few emails, read Evening Prayer quietly to himself, had a last brandy, and turned in.

* * *

At Bent Clough, Zayn slept deeply, in satiate peace, wrapt in love and Liam’s robust, all-protective arms; Hazza and Lou snored in exhausted counterpoint, saw and squeak; and Niall – well, there was a reason he had his own _Princess Bride_ quote: ‘sleep well and dream of large women’.

Liam, dozing, was just sufficiently awake and alert to hear, with the satisfaction of a vindicated prophet, the wireless come on, as programmed, volume low: ‘And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at 0015 today. There are warnings of gales in all areas except Trafalgar. The General Synopsis at 1800: low....’

He snuggled deeper into Zayn’s warmth and all-encompassing, all-enfolding love.

* * *

Some hours later, the Peak felt the force of the first gale of the season – incidentally waking Charles Taunton, who revelled in wild weather.

By dawn, Liam – who simply liked _weather,_ full stop, and who was of course awake with the dawn – had reverted to the happy four-year-old in a man’s body he often was. (Zayn was fiercely protective of Liam’s right to be just that, knowing that Liam, when four, had not been granted the chance of being happy.) He almost regretted his own foresight in having laid in firewood for the hearths (Zayn had, the second day they were in possession, found himself thinking about the meaning of hearths and homes, sacred fires, Vesta...): it was the sort of morning which almost demanded that one go out of doors, dancing in place from childish excitement, boots crunching the frost-rimed grass, breath (locomotive breath, as Ian and his band had sung) erupting in little clouds, to chop wood or do something equally tartan-flannelled and strenuous. (There were reasons Liam and the duke got on, perhaps, the best of all the lads with the duke.)

By the time the others trailed downstairs or down corridors to bask near the Aga and sleepily expect to be fed, the frost and a touch even of what might be ice still sheathed and bespangled the higher ground, glinting like diamond shards in the morning light. The gale had passed, wind-honing the land, stripping away dead leaves and weak branches, laving all things with cold rain and frost, the wounded surgeon wielding a dispassionate scalpel. The skies were deeply blue, illimitable; early, as yet small, groups of fieldfare hopped bright-eyed in the stiff, cold grass, and now and again a merlin or a hen harrier clove the air. They could not see, but sensed, the red deer in the moorland fastnesses and the woods beyond the little farms; they sensed that they’d soon see redwings and bramblings as winter drew nigh, heralded by yet greater gales and the seasonal struggles of goshawk and grouse.

And withindoors, in the sturdy old house that had stood unshaken to the gale’s bluster, it was warm, and light, and friendly; and there was (O blessed Liam) porridge, and tea, vegetarian bangers and _real_ bangers, muffins and toast and butter and jam (and proper Staffordshire oatcakes), mushrooms and tomatoes, and a mighty bowl of shirred eggs which even Niall might find sufficient; and, just when they had done, a duke and a Nawab at the door, all tweed and cold air and bright eyes and ideas.

It seemed, Liam had just said before they heard the motorcar approaching, right, somehow, that once again they’d begun in storm, and come through together, as they always had done and always should do: to which The Tommo’s sharp responding grin had been blinding.

* * *

‘Right,’ said the duke. ‘What we’re goin’ on with – pass the muffins, there’s a good lad – is this. Before the four who’re comin’ out come out, I intend to make damned certain you’re all five of you established as somethin’ less ephemeral (and frankly ludicrous) than popstars. Tomlinson, I assume you remain interested in Rovers? Right. You’ll be buyin’ them. Found you a partner: Peter Halifax. The –’

‘P- – are you referring to....’

‘Yes, yes, Peter Wood, earl of Halifax. With him on board and me backin’ you, the League – and sweet FA – ’ll have neither the spine nor the neck nor the balls to oppose. Oh, and Tomlinson, for these and all _non-_ industry appearances, do wear proper tailoring, won’t you? And cover your damned tattoos. The –’

‘You don’t approve?’

His Grace was always ready to put the Establishment view. ‘They’re appallin’. One of you has a few too many, and three of you have far too many, and there’s a reason you’ve had your troubles in bein’ taken seriously, although I will say Malik here can pull the look off, although that’s hardly news, bugger’d be able to pull off walking about in nothing save a bin liner – it’d become fashionable – although that in turn’d no doubt make Payne here succumb to “Hulk smash!” jealousy in response to the general public salivation: not even you can quite manage _that_ sort of thing, Styles, infant Jagger though you be, and _do_ get a trim at Trumper, damn it, it’s –’

‘Wait, wait,’ said Louis; ‘stop. You’re _straight._ ’

‘Hm? Oh – you mean m’ pointin’ out Malik’s quite indecent good looks? I _am_ straight, I’m not _blind._ Walkin’ proof that Alexander and his army did reach what’s now Pakistan, just as Arrian said, is young Malik. And before you bridle at me, damn you, you’re all five of you absurdly good-looking, it’s simply that Malik is so in that damned male-model fashion he affects. Now, don’t interrupt, this is important: we must return to our muttons. Malik, as we’ve somehow got on to you as a topic, I spoke to Tony at Agnew’s – oh, Christ, all right, I’ll plod: the admirable Crichton-Stuart. Lord Anthony Crichton-Stuart? Old Bute’s second son? Brother to the current marquess? Art dealer: that’s the chap. He doesn’t do contemporary art, but he’s willin’ to advise; I don’t know if you’ve anything you’d like to display – no? Don’t be shy – all right, if you’re certain – but you’re damned well goin’ to preside and act as patron: we’re puttin’ on an exhibition in town – yes, London, don’t be dense, I _said,_ “town” – of British Asian artists in aid of the British Asian Trust. You’ll be sharing that duty with Lord Alli. And I think two other of the Prince’s Charities’ll muck in, the Drawing School and the School of Traditional Arts.

‘That reminds me – yes, thank you: slice of lemon, please – Tomlinson, you’ll be becoming, after the Rovers deal is done and dusted, a patron of Doncaster Pride. If the footer buggers don’t like that, I’ll join John Amaechi in makin’ them regret they were ever born, so don’t you worry about it. Besides, at the end of the day, the FA do have a president, who’s only as ceremonial as he wishes to be; and I don’t see HRH allowin’ that sort of thing for one moment – nor yet Dyke of Islington and Notting Hill and All That, come to that.

‘Styles, you’ll be gettin’ further involved with Stonewall – and with Fairbridge. Payne, I hope you’re familiar with the Carver Wolverhampton Marathon for charity; you’ll also be associatin’ yourself with the Black Country Livin’ Museum and with The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts. I’m decidin’ now which anti-bullyin’ charity to put you up for: AAB, I expect. Horan, Helen’s Trust is based in Derbs – it’s for home hospice care – so that’s one for you, and the Sick Children's Trust is another. And of course you’ll work with the Glencree Centre, on peace and reconciliation between the Republic and Norn. That’ll do to be goin’ on with.

‘Obviously, all of you’ll attend one another’s functions as possible, but – even before the announcement – I want the boyfriends there being boyfriend-like, subtly – _subtly,_ Tomlinson. And then we’ll have a press conference the day after Boxin’ Day.’

* * *

The lads hated to leave Bent Clough on Sunday evening – Liam and Zayn especially, of course (it had taken Liam no time at all to become full of plans for Summertide well-dressings and for fell-runs, for fêtes and steam railways and abseiling down mountain peaks, and all the local immersions that had half-convinced Louis the band was in its death-throes), but the others as well: not least because they had indeed made use of and progress in the attached studio (Liam was beginning to have wild notions of a pop-flavoured version of _The Transatlantic Sessions,_ bless) as they put together their new album. (The duke, puckishly, with a pretence of innocence and of purely musical reference, had suggested they call it, ‘Open Fifth’, and they were beginning to come ’round to the idea, if only to annoy Sony, who were yet reeling from the bad publicity attendant upon the hacking of much of their internal comms and were accordingly even less capable of denying the lads and the duke anything.)

Yet there was much to do: charities and appeals to support and (Irving was by now resigned, if not wholly on board: an objection not to the goal but to the ducal methods and the ducal high-handedness) suspicions to encourage, before they should allay those speculations by confirming them.

* * *

The day after Boxing Day was clear and keen – and, as the duke had counted upon its being, a slow news-day, leaving Fleet Street eager for any story at all. The duke had already doled out follow-up appearances (to, in fact, as Stoker and Eddie had two-thirds guessed, Alan Carr, Graham Norton, and, inevitably if with no real ducal grace, Grimmy); but today was being perfectly stage-managed. The Great Room of Taunton House, in its Georgian perfection, had a calm which not even the grubby denizens of Fleet Street who were admitted for once within could mar. The duke – in an OE tie – and the Nawab – in the MCC’s egg-and-bacon tie – surveyed the Press with a cool and daunting air. All four party leaders – Nigel included – were present in the seats for important guests, basking in the reflected celebrity (so much less trumpery than that of the politician) of the duke’s investors (bar the Duchy of Cornwall) in Clumber Management: Dame Shirley and Macca, Adele, Ian Anderson, and Mika. (Ed Miliband, for one, had made such capital as he might – his constituency being after all Donny – in backing Louis’ Rovers takeover.) Boris was beaming like a blond Ed Sheeran, seated next a languorous and darkling Lord Mandelson. Simon Cowell was on parade, looking ostentatiously supportive (and _almost_ convincingly so), and refusing to meet the eyes of Irving and Jeff Azoff. John Amaechi was present as well, and Stephen Fry, and Clare Balding: which ought, really, to have been enough for the Press to twig at once; so also was Richard Coles. (The boys were more impressed, even so, at the realisation that there, in silent support, sat not only Gandalf himself, but, this time, his best friend … Captain Picard.) For, the centre of attention and cynosure of all eyes, at a nobly-proportioned table overlooked by the Rubens _Hercules in his cradle_ , and properly (for once) suited and booted (and barbered), sat the members of the band: Liam and Zayn; Harry and Louis; and in the middle, between Zayn and Harry, Niall, cheekily wearing (with an indult from the duke) a natty, nautical, yachting captain’s cap. The great and good of the Woolfonts were present in force, the duke’s neighbours, alongside the boys’ families; the Begum of Hubli and Lord Alli sat beside the Maliks.

The Thwaites bracket clock struck the hour, and the duke rose languidly. ‘M’ clients have an announcement – which, by God, shall be listened to quietly and respectfully, or I’ll chuck y’ out and see that you _bounce_ in the street when y’ hit. They’ll then give an interview in your presence: to – do, ah, come out and join us, man, don’t lurk in the Athenian Room – Mr Tatchell here. They’ll take _your_ questions – if properly asked, and not in the atmosphere of a damned bear-garden – after. Styles and Tomlinson, you won the toss and elected to bat first....’

‘Yah,’ said Harry, magnificently Zen and steady of eye and hand, and leaned forward towards the microphone.

* * *

Two hours after, the boys sat stunned: largely because they, like everyone else, had absolutely no way of gauging the public reaction.

‘We actually broke t’e Internet,’ repeated Niall, in awed tones. ‘Jaysus. I didn’t t’ink it could be _done,_ but.’

The duke, who was luxuriating in port and a pippin (no one else had cared for any: port even now rather alarmed and abashed the lads), chortled. He’d been a trifle disappointed not to have had occasion to have any of the hacks chucked out, but he’d declined to allow the _Fail_ and the _Sun_ and the other red-tops into his town house for starters, so.... He cracked a walnut, and sipped his port.

‘I thought you did very well, all of you,’ said the Nawab, who could be as high-minded as Liam himself when occasion dictated. ‘You included … “Captain Niall”.’

Niall grinned. He’d loved every moment of supporting and defending his friends-and-brothers; and of getting a crafty bit of cheek in whilst he was at it, not least by pointing out that their hitherto largely female fanbase likely _yet_ drooled over the others, but nowadays had only one prospect, if of age: _him._ That had made even the constipated-looking woman from the _Grauniad,_ who felt that this Important Event and Blow for Social Justice was No Laughing Matter, to smile, and had thawed the pompous, disapproving old fool from the _Torygraph._

‘Enjoy the quiet whilst y’ may,’ said the duke, wisely. ‘Happy Christmas, in fact. We may have managed a controlled environment here, today – and even that couldn’t stop the buggers asking for precise labels for your sexualities and Why-Did-You-Lie-To-Your-Public-For-So-Long –’

‘I thought Cowell was going to be sick, copiously, at that juncture,’ said the Nawab, with fastidious distaste.

‘Not on _my_ Turkey carpet he was damned well well-advised not to do,’ said the duke, outraged at the thought. ‘Serve him right, though: the guilty flee when no man pursueth: the Book of Proverbs, the Eighth Chapter, beginnin’ at the first verse: here endeth the Lesson – and, speakin’ of labels, and former managements, I think we did an acceptable amount of damage in answerin’ the Why-The-Closet query. But – as I was sayin’ – it’ll be a damned sight more impertinent from here on, by a longish damned chalk: longer than the Cerne Abbas giant, speakin’ of chalk. The Internet and that shower, demandin’ to know who and how and how often and all the secrets of the bedchamber, as if they’ve a right – or could understand two pins about it were they told, the damned fools, half of them with no idea of the damned thing at all. God save me from the impertinent salacity of dirty-minded virgins: oxymorons, the lot of them. I warn you, though: idiots’ll be askin’ Lenin’s old question: Who, Whom? And makin’ assumptions about it, and freightin’ those assumptions with presumptions of who’s more masculine and who, less.’ He nodded towards where Zayn was curled up happily in Liam’s lap (both of them wondering how soon they could return to Bent Clough and go to the panto in Buxton). ‘Bit of that already – appallin’, really – with the two of you. Blasphemous as well: damned nearly did have the little shit chucked out.’ The duke had instead blasted the sarky little Beeb Entertainment & Arts hipster who’d dared make a snide ‘is it more blessed to give, or to receive’ remark, pretending it was a question: Charles had begun by calling him a subliterate prick, then demanded could he identify the source of the quotation he was blasphemously misusing (he couldn’t, of course: Acts xx. 35), and ended by suggesting he approach Richard Coles – or Fr Paddick, up from the Woolfonts – for an education followed by confession and absolution contingent upon penance. All this, whilst the cameras rolled and the interview went out live.

Louis was a model of calm, at peace at last. ‘It’ll be shit. But it doesn’t _matter,_ now. We’re out, and we’re free, and it’s done, and there’s no going back. That looks like victory, whatever comes – and come what may, we’ll face it together.’

And as Harry nuzzled Louis’ throat, the duke, seeing that the lads even now were shy of port wine, simply gestured with his own glass.

‘I’ll drink to that,’ said he.

* * *

 

* * *

FINIS 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Those interested in the duke and his friends may if they wish follow my profile to my Tumblr, whereat there is much more information. Additionally, many details: the landscape around Longnor and Leek, the local pubs and merchants, Georgian bracket clocks, trees and wildlife in specific places, literary references, rail schedules, the lot: may be of interest to you and can be found through any good Internet search engine. It is my view that the more fantastic the tale, the more important the accuracy of detail....
> 
> NB: This tale has a sequel of sorts under my other nom de plume, Aeshna etonensis, entitled ‘In dulci jubilo’, written for Giselle’s Christmas challenge.


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